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Haern - The King's Watcher
Youth Haern was once called Aaron Felhorn, the son of Thren, who was the guild leader of the Spider Guild and the instigator of the ten year thief war with the trifect. Aaron was to be his prized assassin and heir, Thren tried to raise his son to be something not of humanity, both below it and above. No conscience, no remorse, faster and more skilled than should be possible, starved of friendship, faith, love, he should have followed that path. He did not. The shift began when he did not kill his target, a young girl who was the daughter of a priest that had spoken out against Thren, he heard her praying and stayed his hand. He later met Delysia again, saving her from an assassin sent after her by Thren. He wore a mask and told the assassin that his name was Haern, and, when wearing the mask he was not his father's son, he was Haern. Those two kindnesses saved his soul, it kindled his faith in Ashur and saved him from becoming the monster his father would have him be. Thren tried to burn that faith from him, sending him to Karak's temple but Haern broke free of the temple, killing several priests as he went. The Bloody Kensgold Haern, having escaped, donned his mask and went to disrupt his father's plans, he killed several thieves and then fled the mansion when it began to burn, his father believed him dead in the fire but Haern survived. In the fight before the building was set ablaze, it was here he first saw the cloak dance that he used so often in later life, used by the Guild leader of the Serpent Guild. The Watcher Haern became the terror in the night, a demon dressed in fray, a whirlwind of flashing steel and billowing cloaks. Every guild feared him for they all suspected him to be part of one of the rival thief guilds. He killed members, informants, merchants who smuggled the guilds' products into the city and many more besides. After an unsuccessful foray to find the source of a regular shipment of gold for the Serpents, Haern returned from the North to find men from the Wolf Guild attacking a wagon, after killing most of them (and being wounded severely in the act) he was shocked to find himself in a house owned by Delysia and her brother, Haern had thought the girl dead after his father had shot her with a crossbow when he had met her on a rooftop for instruction in praying. He joined the Eschaton Mercenaries and protected them through a suicidal mission to attack the thieves in their home, the southern district of Veldaren. Later he was approached by Deathmask, the leader of the Ash Guild, with a plan to find peace. The Watcher took his plan and refined it into something that he had wanted for so many years, a legacy. In a single night he killed all those who did not agree to the terms of his truce. In the process he lost his old friend Senke, who was also a member of the Eschaton, killed by the mercenary killer 'Ghost'